The Invertebrates of Kawaihae Harbor An Exhibit at the Kailua Kona Library January 15th

     While we have been mostly focused on the finishing touches to the upcoming extravaganza at the library, which opens this coming Thursday, I have squeezed in a little snorkeling.  

     On Wednesday, Sandra dropped me off at the pier.  The cruise ship was in, so I walked through the hotel and chose to snorkel on the Ironman side.  The tide was high; there was more swell than we expected, and the water was cloudy.  Not only that, but with the cruise ship tenders coming and going, I was restricted to the designated swimming area.  

Hazlitt's Hermit Crab

    I saw very little and the camera stayed in my pocket.  The only picture I took that day was of an Asian couple who posed for a photo in front of the Kona Boys shack.  After taking their picture (with their camera) I asked where they were from.  The gentleman said Toronto. The New York City of Canada, I replied and his wife chuckled.  They spoke with a thick accent, which I assume, as they were Canadian, was a French accent.  But of course!

   The next day, Thursday, the surf was down.  I checked the tides and decided that a morning swim at Kahalu'u was just the thing.  We arrived around 9 AM to find the gate locked and bearing a Beach Closed sign.  We saw people in the water, so we walked in and found our friend Yasuko on patrol.  She said that the park was closed for maintenance and would reopen in an hour.  I asked about swimming and she said the swimmers were breaking the rules, but nobody would stop them.  So it was OK for me to swim?  

Indian Caloria Nudibranch

    I put on my neoprene vest and hit the water.  I had been swimming for about ten minutes when the lifeguard got on his horn and told all the swimmers that the park was closed and we had to get out. As it turns out, this didn't make much sense because all the swimmers were tracking sand where the cleaners had just done their job.  I had one picture of a Hebrew cone for my efforts.

    Note to beach goers: Kahalu'u is closed the first Thursday of every month from 8 to 10 for maintenance.

    As per my opening, most of our time lately has been spent fine tuning the exhibit which will run from January 15th until the end of February.  A month ago, I solicited help from Hai On, our friend who got us started at Kawaihae years in the past, and who several of you out there in Blog-land have met personally.  Hai was too busy with his children and other relatives to take me snorkeling at the scene of the crime.  However, he has become involved with a project supported by iNaturalist, the populist arm of the California Academy of Science.  In lieu of a snorkel, he sent me the web page iNaturalist has devoted to his species list (two other observers are included in the compilation, but I only used Hai's).  There is a map of Kawaihae with itty bitty numbers to show where the species were found.

   Not to mention a veritable plethora of captioned pictures of the animals of Kawaihae.  Eureka!

Ornate Hermit Crab

    Of course, I had a lot of my own information, but Hai, being the veritable Tom Bombadil of Kawaihae, had much more.

    I had already produced six species of nudibranchs that I had seen at Kawaihae, along with several sponges, bryozoans and what have you.  Hai's list gave me two more nudibranchs and some other obscure animals.  I'm including here models of one of the nudibranchs.  New to you, unless you happen to be Peter Krottje...the Indian Caloria.  The Kahuna Nudibranch is safely tucked away.  As you can see, the Caloria doesn't lend itself to tucking.

    Additionally, over the last few weeks, I started making hermit crabs.  Joyce Kilmer might protest: only God can make a hermit crab.  Well, these are merely models, they can't walk around or pinch you if they end up, somehow, in your pocket.  But I think they are pretty darn good and despite the fact that they are not emblematic invertebrates of Kawaihae, they are common enough that they must at least be in the vicinity. And possessing a modicum of hubris, I'm including them in my diorama.

Seuratt's Hermit Crab

    It seemed like everything was coming together.  On Thursday I repainted the background.  this sounds easy but I was exhausted from ten minutes of snorkeling, so it was a significant task.  Then on Friday morning we staged a dress rehearsal.  We put the two panels on the table on the lanai, got out all the clay and paper mache figures with the intention of attaching many of them permanently to their new cardboard home.  We had everything in place.  

    At this point, I got out my little bag of rooster tail feathers.  Amazon calls these craft feathers and you can buy a couple dozen for about eight clams. 

     Suddenly disaster struck.  I had totally underestimated the circumference of a rooster quill.  Someone like Thomas Jefferson, who history tells us penned the DoI with a quill, would have known these things are not exactly small.  Aside from watching the handsome devils strut around our rural neighborhood, I possess a minimum of first hand experience with roosters.  

Is Kailua Kona ready for this?

    The craft feathers are destined to fill out two feather duster worms.  The small upright brown tubes I had fashioned on the cardboard (which Sandra declared to be more than a bit phallic) were each supposed to contain a dozen quills.  The best we could stuff in was five. 

   There is a current joke about Melania.  When asked if she was aware of Donald's venous insufficiency, she replied, "Yes.  Donald has a very small venous."  You can see this on youtue/SNL.  LMFAO.  I just learned that.  Isn't the internet wonderful?

    Meanwhile, my small venouses have been, much like MacDuff, untimely ripped.   MacDuff went on to kill MacBeth.  My little brown tubes went on to the garbage box. New tubes have been fashioned and I am debating whether or not I will repaint the background on both panels for the third time.  And do I have time for another substandard snorkeling excursion before the exhibit goes up? Stay tuned.

jeff